New Jersey Law Banning Alien Detention Ruled Unconstitutional

A federal judge has ruled that a New Jersey law, which effectively banned detention of illegal aliens, is unconstitutional.

Dale Wilcox with the Immigration Reform Law Institute stated on the decision,

Immigration is a federal concern, and the New Jersey law was a brazen attempt to interfere with the federal government’s constitutional role. Given the border security crisis that has escalated the last few years, it is essential for our country to have the ability to detain illegal aliens who have violated federal law and are fighting deportation.

The New Jersey law, passed by the state’s Democrats, forced the closure of three of the four immigration detention centers across New Jersey and was set to close the final detention facility later this month. “In practice, the law banned local and state agencies, as well as private firms, from contracting with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to detain illegal aliens,” reports Breitbart News.

However, United States District Court Judge Robert Kirsch, appointed by President Joe Biden, ruled this week that the law is unconstitutional due to it blocking the federal government from properly carrying out its duties to enforce federal immigration law.

Judge Kirsch wrote in his opinion:

New Jersey’s disagreement with the manner in which ICE detains individuals for civil immigration violations, or that the federal government detains individuals for civil immigration violations at all, does not permit AB 5207’s intrusion into this uniquely federal function.

If New Jersey objects to how the federal government carries out its detention operations, it should use its voice, through its nationally elected representatives and federal elections, to make its objection heard.

Enforcing AB 5207 against Plaintiff would close the last remaining facility in New Jersey to which ICE has access. The result of any one of New Jersey’s neighboring states passing a comparable law — let alone an ensuing domino effect to other states — would result in nothing short of chaos. Although reference to the federal government was conveniently omitted from AB 5207, the statute is a dagger aimed at the heart of the federal government’s immigration enforcement mission and operations. Congress’s assignment to the federal government the responsibilities to enforce the civil immigration laws, including, when necessary, through detention, renders AB 5207 unconstitutional under the Supremacy Clause.

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